Stagecoach 2013: Roger McGuinn and Old School Medicine Show bring the heat

INDIO – Stagecoach country music festival acts Roger McGuinn and Old Crow Medicine Show performed two different sets but each resulted in the same great musical result.

McGuinn, lead singer of The Byrds, performed a cover of a Bob Dylan song “My Back Pages” with just a guitar to start off his set on the Palomino Stage while Old Crow Medicine Show played a high-energy and uptempo style of bluegrass, Americana and folk songs inside the Mustang Stage.

Between songs, McGuinn would tell stories like how he helped create a song from Bob Dylan lines on a napkin for “Ballad Of Easy Rider” for the 1969 film and how he was a fan of science and technology which led to the Byrds song “Mr. Spaceman.”

Harrisonburg, Virginia’s Old Crow Medicine Show packed the Mustang Stage with young male and female fans who danced and yelled as the group energetically performed 2006’s “New Virginia Creeper” from the album “Big Iron World” and “Mississippi Saturday night” from the 2012 album “Carry Me Back.” The group also performed “Humdinger” from 2008’s “Tennessee Pusher.”

Over in the Palomino Stage, McGuinn described 1969’s “Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man,” which he said was fleshed out in ahotel room while he was “picking” with deceased Joshua Tree musician Gram Parsons. The song is about a DJ who would not play their record, McGuinn added.

Like most of the other acts Friday, the sounds for McGuinn and the Old School Medicine Show were crystal clear and neither artist had issues with their microphones.